Nhemongueta and collective work

Abstract

This article discusses Nhemongueta (a space for dialogue, listening, and collective decision-making) and Mba’eapo/Nhembiapo (collective work/collective effort) as pedagogical and organizational processes that challenge and redefine the management, curriculum, and meanings of schooling at the Guarani Indigenous Municipal School Para Poty Nhe’ẽ Ja, located in Tekoa Ka’aguy Hovy Porã, in Maricá (RJ). Written by a confluence of Indigenous and non-Indigenous women, the text is based on a methodology built on the intertwining of participatory research, university extension, and daily experience in the territory. Initially, we recover the trajectory of territorial reclamation led by the shaman Para Poty and the processes of Guaraniization of the school, marked by disputes surrounding language, spirituality, school management, and the permanence of children and young people in the territory. Next, we analyze how Nhemongueta and the collective work (mutirão) were incorporated into daily school life as their own teaching and learning methodologies, reorganizing times, spaces, and pedagogical relationships. We argue that such practices express territorial pedagogies in which thinking, doing, praying, caring, and learning are inseparable. By shifting and challenging the school through dialogue with Nhandereko, the territory and the land emerge as pedagogical agents.